


innuendo

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dubious Missions Behind Enemy Lines, M/M, Smuggler Ben Solo, Snark, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-25 15:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14381466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: The confident ones always expected something for nothing but their charms.But charm didn’t fill the fuel tanks. It didn’t repair a bad binary motivator. It sometimes got you past blockades, but if that was all it took to get off this garbage scow of a planet, this guy wouldn’t have thought he needed Ben.





	innuendo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theLiterator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/gifts).



“You look like the kind of guy who knows his way around a… cockpit,” said some pretty-faced man as he climbed onto the stool next to Ben’s. He smelled a bit like grease, a bit like the iron-tang of blood, a bit like the kind of trouble that couldn’t pay its way out of it. And when Ben looked at him, close and assessing out of the corner of his eye, he knew better than to stick around. Eyes like his were dangerous. They were the kind of eyes that made people want to do shit for him no matter how smarmy the words were that fell from his stupid, generously busted lips.

The confident ones always expected something for nothing but their charms.

But charm didn’t fill the fuel tanks. It didn’t repair a bad binary motivator. It sometimes got you past blockades, but if that was all it took to get off this garbage scow of a planet, this guy wouldn’t have thought he needed Ben.

Swallowing the last of his whisky, he gestured at the bartender, Y8-RE9, a good, discreet droid who was as close to a confidant as Ben got on said garbage scow. The droid tipped its head in dull-brass acknowledgment of Ben’s raised hand. It knew what Ben meant. _Put it on my tab. Pay for this loser’s next round. And for the love of the Force, don’t tell him a damned thing about me once I go._ “No, thank you,” Ben said, perfectly cordial, dusting stray nothings from his vest as he got to his feet to brush wrinkles from his shirt and pants. “I don’t horn in on Intendant Falaise’s territory.” He drew his finger down his cheek in demonstration. “Might want to get that cut checked out. His rings tend to cause infections. Some say it’s on purpose. The way I hear it, you could lose half your face to a backhanded slap from him.”

“That’d be a shame,” the man said agreeably as he climbed to his feet, too.

“Not much of one,” Ben answered, dark, unwilling to pay the man even the smallest compliment of admitted that yes, it would be a shame. He walked with perhaps more purpose than he usually did, outpacing the man as much as was possible from within the close confines of the bar. If the man was going to follow him, Ben was perfectly happy to make him look utterly ridiculous while doing so. At the very least, he was struggling to keep up. Between pushing his way through the crowd and contending with the length of Ben’s stride, he didn’t stand much of a chance. Ben wouldn’t lose him—whatever else he was in this life, he wasn’t that lucky—but he could at least get them out from beneath the watchful gazes of Falaise’s toadies and spies without raising much of their suspicion.

He was known around these parts not to help any of the sad sacks trying to get off this dung heap. It was the only way he made it offworld at all.

Ben spotted at least three informants on his way out the door and saluted one of them with two fingers to his forehead and a wink.

At least the man had made his words sound more innuendo-laden than desperate for transport. If any of them reported back, all they could say was Ben Solo probably had terrible taste in men or the man had terrible taste in men. Either, or. Didn’t matter so long as none of them realized this man was asking for a way off this planet instead of a good time.

Outside, Ben risked a look back, waited for one of the three to shove their way onto the dusty street, too, prepared to give his troublesome shadow a surprise if it became necessary—just to throw anyone watching off the scent, of course. It was even odds on whether Ben would kiss or punch him if the moment came—he trusted inspiration to strike at the right moment—but it did not. The road remained mostly devoid of beings, bodies pressed into the various cantinas and restaurants and dance halls instead. It would be hours yet until anyone saw fit to leave, except for those who’d already secured their evening’s plans and needed to return to hovels, hotels, and homes to see them through.

“You’re a fool,” Ben risked saying, spitting the words as he threw his arm out in a vague, vicious indication of the direction they were heading. “Reckless, you’re—”

“You’re Leia Organa’s son,” the man said, calm, losing the oily quality entirely. Now, he meant business. As he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, he frowned. “And you’re not a damned thing like I thought you’d be.” He tilted his head to better scrutinize him. “Huh.”

Ben sneered and scuffed his boots against the crumbling duracrete beneath his feet. He finally slowed enough for the man to keep up. Now, their best cover would be looking as normal as possible. “Oh, good. Did she send you all this way to let me know how much of a disappointment I am? Tell her I’m already well aware of that fact.”

“Wow. I don’t even—I’m not here to get involved in your personal family drama, okay? Frankly, I don’t want to know.” Leaning into Ben’s space, he breathed his next words against Ben’s ear. “But you’re not wrong about Falaise. He’s onto me and I need to get my report back to the Resistance. Now.”

“No.” Ben’s hair fell into his eyes as he shook his head. “Absolutely not. I’m not in that business. I don’t ferry—” He couldn’t even bring himself to say the word. It tasted like ash on his tongue. He wasn’t a hero. He just wanted to be some guy who got by. “I don’t have docking clearance.”

“You do,” the man answered, far more patient than anyone who’d caught Ben in such a shallow lie had any right to be. “You think I didn’t do my research? There were fifteen other smugglers in that bar I could’ve approached, but you’re my best bet and the softest touch. You’re the most skilled, most connected. Falaise, for reasons that escape me, doesn’t see you as a threat…”

“And I’m Leia Organa’s son.”

The man shrugged. “I might be more inclined to trust you on that account.”

“My father is Han Solo,” Ben countered.

“He’s a good man. I trust him, too.”

Ben bit back a scoff. He’d been right. This man was trouble and, if Ben said yes, he wouldn’t be getting any sort of payday out of it. But those eyes, they were challenging now under the old, sodium yellow lights that hovered high above the street at regular intervals and they saw as deeply into Ben as another person was capable of reaching. And instead of recoiling or jeering in turn, he merely smiled, encouraging. He was definitely a fool. “What’s your name?”

That smile bloomed into something far more promising than the encouragement it held before. Ben tried not to think too hard about that. It always ended in regret, mostly for the person who ever thought to believe Ben was something better than what he was. “Poe. Poe Dameron. Nice to finally work with you.”

“We’re not working together.” He gestured again, this time to indicate that they should turn onto a sidestreet that led to the spaceport. “You’re my passenger and that’s it.”

Poe raised his hands in acknowledgment. “Passenger. Got it. Works for me.”

“Only to the nearest neutral station.”

“Sounds fair. I love a good neutral station.”

Ben swallowed and thought long and hard before he made his next stipulation. Despite himself, he liked Poe. And more than that, he liked the way Poe made him feel. Having dealt a lot in the manipulation of people, that was a dangerous, heady thing to find himself enjoying. “We never see each other again.”

“Not my favorite idea,” Poe replied, “but if that’s what it takes, sure. We never see each other again.” He said it like he didn’t mean it or like he thought it was an inevitability of the universe that they would meet again despite it. It made Ben uneasy, but it sent a thrill up his spine, too, like Poe believed that fate itself would throw them together again. Ben wanted to want it and knew better than to want it and he tried to hold tight to his convictions in the face of all his conflicting desires.

Convictions were the only thing he had.

So he managed, just barely, to hold tight to the words that sat on the back of his tongue that belied those very convictions. _Okay_ , he didn’t say, _so maybe we can see each other again_. “You pay me,” he finished, “untraceable credits. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

Freeing his hand from his pocket, Poe held out a chit, small and elongated, it probably held significantly more credits on it than Ben would’ve asked for even under normal circumstances. “Hazard rates,” Poe said, indifferent, like there wasn’t even the littlest story behind how a cash-strapped Resistance operative found himself carrying around a fully secured credit chit. “Like I said, I did my research. Any other demands or can we get to the part where you actually say you’ll do this and I’m the easiest job you ever got?”

“I get the feeling there’s nothing easy about you.” He bit his lower lip to keep from smiling. It wouldn’t do for Poe to get any ideas. _Remember those convictions, Ben Solo_. “But I’ll do it.”

And if Poe got some ideas anyway and shattered every conviction Ben ever held, Ben didn’t, in the end, have the heart in him to complain too much about them.

Some of the time, they were even good ideas.

But Ben would never, ever admit as much.

Luckily for him, Poe didn’t seem to mind it.


End file.
